When impunity meets history

This sight would have seemed impossible just a few years ago.

Raul Castro Luz’s name officially appears in a U.S. federal criminal complaint. The former Cuban army general was one of the most powerful figures in the Havana regime for decades and was charged in connection with the downing of a rescue plane and the deaths of American citizens in 1996. And it all unfolded on May 20th inside Miami’s Freedom Tower.

The details are important.

That’s because the indictment comes at one of the most fragile and politically tense moments in recent relations between Washington and Havana. This comes as Cuba faces a deep economic collapse, growing political exhaustion, mass migration, power outages, and growing public discontent both on and off the island. This day also marks the anniversary of the founding of the Republic of Cuba in 1902, which has great symbolic weight for Cuban exiles.

But the true meaning of this moment goes far beyond symbolism.

What happened in Miami is emblematic of something bigger. It is the destruction of the idea that certain men can never be held responsible.

For decades, Raul Castro personified the persistence of revolutionary power in Cuba. Minister of Defense. military strategist. A man who has been in charge of the military for generations. One of the central architects of Cuba’s political and security apparatus, founded alongside Fidel Castro. Many believed that this person would be forever protected by power, time, and history itself, and that no court of law would ever invade this world.

Today, that image is very different.

Today, his name appears in the language of American criminal prosecution.

And it completely changes the historical aspect of this event.

Because this is no longer just a political condemnation expressed by the Cuban exile community. This is now a formal federal criminal charge announced by the US government against one of the most senior figures in the history of the Cuban regime.

This setting itself had great meaning.

Freedom Tower is more than just a building in Miami. For generations of Cuban exiles, it represents memory, exile, survival, and the beginning of a new life after fleeing Cuba. Thousands of Cubans passed through its doors after fleeing the revolution. Families arrived with fear, anxiety, sadness and hope all at once. Announcing these accusations from that place turned the moment into something much deeper than a legal proceeding.

And members of the exile community weren’t the only people who witnessed it.

Those in attendance included relatives of young men killed nearly 30 years ago. Families waited for decades for word, fearing it would never come. The family, who carried the weight of the loss believing the man was responsible, will never be formally charged in any court of law.

That emotional weight still surrounds the case.

On February 24, 1996, two civilian aircraft operated by Brothers to the Rescue were shot down by Cuban military jets over the Florida Strait. Armando Alejandre Jr., Carlos Costa, Mario de la Peña and Pablo Morales were killed. These flights were associated with humanitarian rescue operations searching for Cubans who attempted to flee the island during the 1990s migration crisis.

Those aircraft were not military bombers.

They weren’t attacking Cuba.

These were civilian planes participating in rescue operations for Cubans who risked their lives at sea.

That reality has always shaped how this tragedy lives on in the memory of the Cuban exile community.

For many, this was never thought of as simply a geopolitical conflict between hostile governments. It was seen as the use of military force against civilians in connection with a humanitarian mission in one of the darkest chapters in modern Cuban immigration history.

But for many Cubans, this indictment is about much more than the Brothers to the Rescue case itself.

The film touches on decades of unresolved pain involving one of the central figures behind Cuba’s military and political system.

This message reaches mothers who have buried sons who died in forced military service or in distant wars in which they did not choose to fight. A family that spent years believing in promises that were never fulfilled. Political prisoners who disappeared into silence. Relatives who watched their loved ones die while trying to flee the island.

And for many LGBTQ Cubans, this moment has even more historical weight.

Long before any official campaign to promote tolerance and inclusion emerged from within the Cuban government, years of persecution, terror, forced silence, and humiliation had taken place under the revolutionary regime itself.

The UMAP labor camp remains one of the deepest scars in Cuba’s modern history. Gay men, pastors, religious believers, artists, and others deemed incompatible with revolutionary ideals were expelled under the terms of “reeducation” and forced labor.

In recent decades, public gestures toward LGBTQ inclusion promoted by figures close to Cuba’s leadership have attempted to project an image of progress and openness to the international community. But for many survivors, and many Cuban LGBTQ people, these actions never erased the trauma and historical responsibility tied to the same power structures that once persecuted them.

For many, recognition without accountability still feels painfully incomplete.

That is why this accusation resonates so deeply today.

Because it comes at a time when Cuba is once again facing a serious national crisis. The island is losing an entire generation to migration. Public dissatisfaction continues to grow. Economic collapse shapes everyday life. And the revolutionary narrative that once projected permanence and control seems increasingly eroded by reality itself.

Against this backdrop, the images that emerge from Miami become even more impressive.

A man once considered untouchable in history is now a fugitive, formally charged by the U.S. government and legally wanted by the U.S. judiciary.

History moves slowly, but suddenly it doesn’t.

And for many Cubans on the island and across the diaspora, what happened inside Freedom Tower today felt like witnessing something they once believed they would never live to see.

As a Cuban, as an immigrant, and as someone who has lived with that pain, the following thoughts come back to me tonight:

Justice takes time.

But when it finally arrives, it arrives with a history behind it.